FEMA flood mapping needs to be consistent

Wednesday

Feb 5, 2014 at 2:00 AM

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is mapping the entire coastline of the United States with the intention of updating its outdated floodplain maps — an effort to which everyone from homeowners to business owners to municipalities in the Seacoast would do well to pay rapt attention. Not only could could thousands of people find themselves in a floodplain district for the first time, many of them could be facing expensive insurance premiums or making decisions to raise their homes above the flood elevation. The ramifications for this area are many and significant.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is mapping the entire coastline of the United States with the intention of updating its outdated floodplain maps — an effort to which everyone from homeowners to business owners to municipalities in the Seacoast would do well to pay rapt attention. Not only could could thousands of people find themselves in a floodplain district for the first time, many of them could be facing expensive insurance premiums or making decisions to raise their homes above the flood elevation. The ramifications for this area are many and significant.

While New Hampshire must wait until at least the end of the month for the FEMA preliminary maps to be released, towns would do well to look at what is happening across the river in York County, Maine. In 2009, FEMA redrew floodplain maps in York and Cumberland counties. Seven municipalities challenged FEMA's assumptions, and implementation was eventually halted. FEMA subsequently adopted the maps submitted by those towns — including Kennebunk and Kennebunkport. But when the new preliminary maps came out in 2013, they differed from the 2009 maps in several ways — including flood elevation, and wave runup and setup, two ways FEMA determines how far onto land waves will intrude. This has left other towns in the county shaking their heads at the inequality of the situation.

"There is a concern that there is unequal levels of risk," said Robert Gerber, a geologist and senior engineer at Ransom Consulting in Portland, hired by those seven towns in 2009. Municipalities are lining up now to hire Gerber to review their data — including Kittery and Wells, Maine. In Wells, FEMA mapping indicates flooding into its marsh and harbor area, where the bulk of the 60 new properties identified as now in the floodplain are located. In Kittery, significant parts of Gerrish Island and inland as far as Norton Road past that town's own natural wetlands area are impacted. In York, the entire length of Railroad Avenue in York Beach will be affected.

"We have no idea what they've taken into consideration. They're FEMA," said Community Development Director Steve Burns. "They're obligated to do a good job. So why are all these towns hiring engineers?"

And, we might add, spending tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money to examine maps that taxpayer-funded FEMA should have at the very least been consistent about implementing.

We applaud Maine Sen. Angus King and Rep. Chellie Pingree for both fighting hard for Mainers on this issue. They have written letters to FEMA's director, urging him to allow towns and cities to submit their own reports about the floodplain maps. King filed a bill that would allow communities to be reimbursed by the government for the costs of successfully appealing inaccurate flood maps. This past week, a bill supported by King and passed by the Senate would delay implementation of insurance premium increases for four years.

The fact is, the floodplain maps need to be revamped. The fact is, FEMA is broke and needs respite from subsidizing insurance premiums on houses in high risk areas. The fact is, climate change is going to lead to sea level rise in the future that make changes to floodplain maps inevitable. But FEMA must be even-handed, fair and equitable as it works to remap our coastal communities. And residents and municipalities ignore this work at their significant risk.

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